


The sound of snowfall

by Builder



Series: Jonestown [8]
Category: Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Bisexual Jessica Jones, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, POV Natasha Romanov, Relationship(s), Sickfic, Snow Day, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 05:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17278259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Builder/pseuds/Builder
Summary: Nat wants to tell her it’s not her fault, that it would’ve happened anyway. She wants to tell her that she hardly ever pukes when she drinks, that this is weird, that she’ll clean it up.   But she’s still too nauseated to move her jaw. Her breath comes in a wet rattle when she inhales. And Jess already knows._____There are other things to do on a snow day than build a snowman.





	The sound of snowfall

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @builder051

Picking up Jess for work is Nat’s first task each day. Sometimes it’s as simple as rolling over in bed and pressing a kiss to Jess’s pink lips, parted slightly and always inviting. Nat wishes that was the case every morning. It feels natural, Nat rising with the sun. Gently pulling her lover back into the land of the living. Coaxing out a smile from the haze of drink and sleep.

 

It would never work, though. They’re probably only so happy together because they aren’t always together. Neither of them is cut out for domesticity, and the schedules of spy rings and overnight stakeouts are hardly accommodating. But Nat can’t complain. She has the low-slung black sports car for a reason. It’s almost as sensual to watch Jess leave lipstick marks on the lid of her Starbucks cup. Almost.

 

It’s snowy today. A heap of the white powder falls from a ledge somewhere up above as she steers out of the tower’s basement garage, the door whirring up and letting her out onto the street. There are a few shallow tire marks in the snow on the street, but not enough to churn it into dirty grey slush. Nat feels ice crunch beneath her tires. She takes it easy, letting the car roll forward with gravity before chancing a tap on the accelerator.

 

It’s the kind of weather that closes schools and gives way to red-nosed newscasters bundled in knockoff Burberry, imploring the public not to leave their high-rises. Nat laughs to herself, pushing the car up past 30 as she plays chicken with a yellow light. She’s the only vehicle out and about this morning, so it’s not like there’s utility in slamming on the brakes. And she’s not even speeding.

 

With the absence of traffic and slickness of the ice, it doesn’t take Nat long to navigate to Hell’s Kitchen. She only slows when she turns, snow spraying in arcs around the wheels. A thrill of excitement flutters in her stomach when she starts to fishtail. Nat grins, then catches the eye of her reflection in the rearview mirror. She could stand to cool her jets.

 

Nobody in Jess’s building seems to have left for work, so there’s no place to park. She doubts any brave souls will venture out anytime soon, so she doesn’t feel too bad about pulling up parallel to a yellow mustang with a 10-inch cap of snow. It looks like an over-frosted sugar cookie, delectable and absolutely ridiculous. There are so few cars in the city that it makes sense for parking options to be limited, but this one’s owner must be nuts. Who leaves such a flashy vehicle parked curbside for any length of time? Well, Nat does, but her sanity’s so far gone that she doesn’t count.

 

She locks up and picks her way across the sidewalk, making pointy tracks with her high-heeled boots. She sinks up to her ankles, and she shivers when some of the powder falls into her shoes. Years of ballet and aikido and cheap, unbalanced treadmills have loosened the neural connections in her feet, but she still wishes she’d worn socks.

 

Jess’s building is hot and wet-smelling, like the collective population of inhabitants have all thrown their damp mittens over the radiator to dry. Nat heads for the stairwell, where the draftiness and mist of cigarette smoke provide cold comfort. She jogs in tight circles up the switchbacks to Jess’s floor, glad she’d had the boots re-soled in rubber. It’s better for both the grip and the quietness. It’s a little disappointing to stride across a hard floor without the purposeful clicking to announce her arrival. But save an aura of sexiness, there’s no good reason for her to have loud shoes. And besides, she doesn’t need to put on airs for Jess. Jess tells her she’s beautiful in a hoodie and sweats.

 

Nat isn’t the one in a hoodie and sweats today, though. The frosted glass panel in the door is meant to discourage prying eyes, but Nat knows how to interpret the fuzzy shapes behind the lettering for Alias Investigation. The greyish, rounded silhouette of Jess’s head and shoulders rise past the line demarking the surface of her desk. She’s already working.

 

“Hey,” Nat taps on the glass with one knuckle. “Open up.”

 

Papers shuffle, and Jess gets up to let her in. “Hey,” she says, raising her eyebrows at Nat through the crack as she releases the chain.

 

“You gonna wear that to the office?” Nat asks, giving a meaningful look to Jess’s baggy sweatshirt before shaking the last bit of snow off the top of her shoe. “Not that you shouldn’t. But, you know…”

 

Jess shrugs. “Did you watch the news? Government stuff is closed today.”

 

Nat didn’t, but she’s not interested in sharing that. “What, for this?” She gestures vaguely toward the window behind Jess’s desk. “It’s not that bad.”

 

“Yeah, well, the transit authority has apparently never been to Minnesota. Or Moscow.” She flashes Nat a smile. “That’s what they’re worried about. Car crashes. It ‘s not like New Yorkers know how to drive anyway, in, like, regular conditions.” Her grin falters.

 

“Seriously, though,” Nat says, stepping into Jess’s kitchen and taking a mug from the drainer basket. “A snow day? Aren’t we too old for that?”

 

“Oh, I’m with you there,” Jess replies, trailing a few steps behind. “If you wanna build a snowman, go ask somebody else.”

 

“Aw, you’re no fun.” Nat reaches toward the cabinet that sometimes contains instant coffee. But not today. There’s only Jack Daniels and Smirnoff.

 

“No, I’m totally fun,” Jess deadpans, grabbing a bottle of whiskey and tearing at the lid’s plastic coating. “Want some breakfast? I’ve got case files, too, but this is better.”

 

“You sure SHIELD’s closed?” Nat asks suspiciously. “I’m not getting a DUI when we get called in for a mission or something.”

 

“It’s a snow day for evil geniuses too.” Jess swigs straight from the bottle, then breaks the seal on the vodka and holds it over Nat’s mug. A drop of clear liquor shivers at the lip and falls like a loose diamond. “All plots to take over the world are delayed till tomorrow.”

 

Nat laughs. It’s stupid to let her guard down so much, but Jess is right. Statistically speaking, at least. More crimes are committed in the summer, regardless of scale. Even terrorists don’t like going out in the cold. “Ok,” she acquiesces. “Sure. But you owe me if I get a parking ticket.”

 

“You won’t,” Jess says. She fills the mug almost to the brim.

 

Nat takes a sip and looks at her questioningly.

 

“Government’s closed, doofus.” Jess bumps Nat’s shoulder with hers, and Nat has to quickly gulp her drink to keep it from spilling. “That means fewer cops, and they’re all gonna be responding to fender benders.”

 

“You owe me if I get in a fender bender, then.” Nat nudges her back.

 

Jess rolls her eyes. “I don’t think you’re drunk enough. You’ve really got the dumb today.”

 

Of course Nat doesn’t think she’ll actually crash. She drives like a stuntwoman when she’s sober, and still better than the average soccer mom when she’s intoxicated. She tosses her hair back even though it’s not in her eyes. “Then maybe it’s a good thing you’re keeping me home.”

 

Jess laughs and kisses her. She tastes like whiskey and sleep, and she rises on her tiptoes so she can give tongue. After a moment, her forehead starts to slide down Nat’s nose. “Take off your fucking tall shoes and come’ere.”

 

The overexcited thermostat makes it comfortable to strip to underwear. They lie on the couch, squashed together at one end, kissing and blushing and not quite watching Good Morning America. They decide to start a new game, drinking every time someone on TV mentions the snow. Quick sips for regular programming. Long ones for special reporting interruptions.

 

They play until they start to forget the rules. The animated map of swirling rainbow weather systems seems to jump up and down, vibrating the sofa like a deck chair on a cruise ship. Nat plants her hand to ground herself and finds the culprit is Jess’s rib cage, shuddering with silent giggles beneath her.

 

“You have to keep going,” Jess says breathlessly, reaching clumsily for her bottle. “This is the lonest fucking snow report I’ve ever seen.”

 

Nat starts giggling too, even though the situation is tilting decidedly towards not funny. Her gut feels watery and heavy. Or maybe that’s her mouth. She’s an overfilled mug, ready to spill, but still sipping anyway. It had helped last time.

 

Nat’s hand goes clammy against the warm glass. The bottle is half-empty and unwieldy. The liquor splashes back and forth, toward the neck, then toward the bottom. Jess’s face distorts as Nat looks at her, going huge and then tiny as the tide rises and falls. Her mouth moves, and Nat knows she’s speaking, but it takes several seconds to disentangle her voice from what’s coming out of the TV.

 

“…ok?”

 

“Huh?” Nat asks into the vodka bottle. A sick hiccup sticks in her throat like a cork about to pop. She doesn’t trust herself to move.

 

“Nat? You ok?”

 

“Uh-huh.” But as she says it, she feels the bottom drop out of her stomach, a springboard compressed and ready to launch. If the TV wasn’t humming, she thinks she’d be able to hear the blood draining from her face, like the sinister trickle from vein to vial in the overly-quiet doctor’s office.

 

“No, you’re not.” Jess sits up, jostling Nat and sending vodka all down the front of her camisole, both from the bottle and rushing up from her throat.

 

“Oh, geez. Sorry,” Jess says, yanking the bottle out of Nat’s hand and cupping her palm beneath her chin.

 

Nat wants to tell her it won’t do any good, though when she opens her mouth, Jess finds out anyway. The sick is clear, but it smells like stomach acid. The kind it’s easy to forget needs to be cleaned up until it dries and becomes a permanent odor. It spills between Jess’s fingers and pools in Nat’s lap until she gains the wherewithal to lean forward over the floor.

 

“Ok. Alright,” Jess mumbles. It’s half comforting and half drunkenly confused, like a stumbling coed looking for the pizza box that turns out to be in her hand.

 

Nat wants to tell her it’s not her fault, that it would’ve happened anyway. She wants to tell her that she hardly ever pukes when she drinks, that this is weird, that she’ll clean it up.   But she’s still too nauseated to move her jaw. Her breath comes in a wet rattle when she inhales. And Jess already knows.

 

“Come on.” Jess hauls Nat off the couch, supporting her easily with one hand while keeping the other, vomit-coated one under Nat’s face. Nat thinks she’s going to be deposited in front of the toilet, and her stomach prepares to heave, but Jess pushes her into the shower instead. She lets go for a second to close the glass door, and Nat retches. Her shoulders fly toward her knees as her legs give way. A weak stream of alcohol comes up and runs between Jess’s feet.

 

“Ok, easy.” She props Nat against the tile wall. Nat expects it to be cold against her spine, but it’s not. It’s warm like the wall of a sauna. Jess keeps her fingers wrapped around Nat’s arm as she reaches to turn on the spray.

 

“’M fine,” Nat chokes. She drags her shaking hand across her mouth and chin. A blur of red and yellow stains the back of her wrist. Nat hopes it’s a hallucination, carryover from the technicolor radar picture embossed on her retinas. But she feels Jess’s eyes boring into her, burning the marks of mucous and blood.

 

Nat wipes it on her thigh. “It’s nothing,” she slurs. Nothing good will come from a lie, and she doesn’t think she’ll be able to come up with something believable, anyway. She does her best to downplay the truth. “Just… a thing that…happens sometimes…”

 

“Ulcer?” Jess guesses, taking down the showerhead and aiming it at Nat’s leg until the smear disappears in a pinkish swirl down the drain.

 

“How’d you—” Nat swallows hard and tries to convince herself the heat in her throat is just from the steam.

 

Jess shrugs. “It’s a thing that happens sometimes. More common than you might think.” Her voice is steady, but her smile wavers. “But I think I owe you for this one.”

 

“But… it isn’t a…?” Nat can’t remember the stipulations of recompense she’d set earlier. Something about cars.

 

“This is worse, isn’t it?” Jess holds the showerhead over Nat’s hair, moving it over the crown of her head so the limp auburn strands fall out of her eyes.

 

Nat considers. “I mean…” She thinks about forcing a laugh, but she doesn’t quite have the breath for it. “It’s not ideal, but… I can think of worse ways to spend a snow day.”

 

Jess’s cheeks are as pink as her lips, and a halo of frizz decorated with tiny water droplets rings her head. “You poor, deprived girl.” She lets the showerhead fall, the spray keeping it from bouncing off the tile. Jess grabs the shampoo, and the scent of flowers overtakes the notes of vodka and bile. “If you’re lying to make me feel better…” She trails off, shaking her head.

 

“I’m not,” Nat says.

 

“I know.” Jess works a lather into Nat’s hair, her touch extra gentle on Nat’s scalp.

 

“Then why’d you say it?” Nat says, trying to look up without straining her eyes.

 

“I wanted to know if you actually would.” Jess’s voice goes up at the end, even though it’s not a question. “Be honest, I mean.”

 

“I was.”

 

“Yeah,” Jess sighs. “I probably shouldn’t’ve questioned it.” She slips into a mumble. Nat isn’t sure if it’s from alcohol or emotion.

 

“If you didn’t, you’d be stupid,” Nat says. A line of foam drips down her temple. She watches it leave a white trail in her peripheral vision. Nat catches it with her thumb and smears it across Jess’s cheek, right under her eye.

 

“What are you doing?” Jess looks at her in a pitying way, her eyebrows raised and her forehead crossed with worry lines.

 

“Giving you an excuse. You keep saying I’m dumb, but you’re the one crying because you got soap in your eyes.” Nat gives a dramatic eye roll that makes her head pound, but an ember of satisfaction glows in her chest as she sees a tear cut the streak of sudsy war paint.

 

“It’s shampoo.” Jess begins to carefully rinse Nat’s hair. The corner of her mouth twitches. “Shut your eyes.”

 

“Well, excuse me.”

 

“I always will, Nat. You know me.”

 


End file.
